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On October 14, 2009, Thomas C. Reed, who was a nuclear weapons designer, Secretary of the Air Force during the Ford and Carter administrations and the 6th director of the National Reconnaissance Office, was at the University of Southern California to give a lecture based on his book entitled “The Nuclear Express and the Prevention of Nuclear Terror.” After giving an international history of the development of nuclear weapons and describing some of the political forces that shaped many countries’ decisions to pursue nuclear weapons, Reed turned to focus on the potential threat of nuclear terrorism in the current day and age.

Reed, while showing charts showing the likely destruction patterns of different size nuclear weapons detonated in Los Angeles, made the assertion that “there is a significant danger of a nuclear event in the West soon…during this President’s term of office…”

During the question and answer session, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, asking the first question by presenting war-game and terror-drill data from the 9/11 operation, openly suggested that the threat of nuclear terrorism was more of an intrastitial, or coup d’etat-type, threat represented by the “apparent treason infecting the deep bowels of the National Security Apparatus.”

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TCR: Now the first lesson I want to impress upon you, especially you of the younger generation is there is a significant danger of a nuclear event in the West soon…during this President’s term of office…

Nuclear weapons are very serious things. In my career, I was involved with the Titan missile…

Titan carried a 10 megaton warhead…

A 10 megaton warhead detonated on City Hall in Los Angeles produces this result: The dark circle is “nothing survives.” Reinforced concrete structures-gone. Notice that USC is right there. [laughter]…

10 megatons is a very serious thing. It is not trivial. Now, terrorists are not capable of building that. That’s very sophisticated design and engineering. But terrorists may well design a 5 kiloton device...

5 kilotons you can get with a very amateurish design. Once you get the plutonium or the enriched uranium, then you can put on a truck or a barge or a boat and get enough ammonia and other stuff to have high explosives…

It is a quarter of the yield of the Nagasaki bomb. It is to me, as a designer, it is an embarrassingly low-tech device. But the results are not low-tech…

Here is a 5 kiloton device detonated in the Los Angeles Marina…

Put it on a yacht… A truck or a yacht, float it into the L.A. Marina and fire it. This is what goes on: Los Angeles Airport- gone. All of, you know, Santa Monica, is on fire. The circle is our fallout because they would fire this on the surface, which produces more fallout. It means that, as far as Baldwin Hills, everybody’s dead. As far as the campus here- again you see USC featured right there- basically, most of the people here are going to die within a week unless they get out of here or get treatment fast. That’s a small terrorist device.

That’s the sort of thing that might not happen at the L.A. Marina. It may be floated up the Hudson River. It may be floated up the Anacostia River in Washington. But the point is, you’ve got to pay attention, because that is a very distinct possibility. Bad guys can do that once they get their hands on fissile materials.

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(Q+A)

JRK: Thank you very much.

Multiple national security insiders have, uh, spoken about the policy coup that took place in the wake of 9/11. And so, with the expertise of this panel, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to ask a question about the role that the inside, or intra-stitial, threat of nuclear terror might have played in the 9/11 operation itself. And this is best asked by briefly laying out a series of confluent war games and terror drills that were being run on 9/11, many of them mimetic of the attacks themselves.

Um, first of all, we have these aerial terror-games, where uh- Vigilant Warrior/Vigilant Guardian, live-fly hijack drills. We also have the National Reconnaissance Office, of which Mr. Reed, I think you were the 6th Director. They were running a drill of a plane flying into their building.

And then, quickly, there were bio-chemical terror, uh, drills going on outside of, uh, Manhattan with FEMA and the Army.

And then, finally, and this is very, uh, pertinent in terms of this panel, there was nuclear terror or warfare drills going on. One of them, Global Guardian, which had to do with Stratcom and had to do with a, uh, nuclear warfare scenario, and then, Operation Jackal Cave, uh, which had to do with the, uh, the Department of Energy’s secret, uh, bomb, uh, nuclear bomb, uh, squad. They were out of the country for the first time in three years to do a drill, uh- undoing a device.

So the question is—

The question is: In light of all these mimetic war games- and we know that, uh, coups, operational coups, are done under cover of drills- what is the relationship of the potential threat of nuclear terrorism to the apparent treason infecting the deep bowels of the National Security Apparatus?

{Silence with arm-waving deferment of the question all the way through the panel, until there is laughter from the audience and Mr. Reed realizes he is the one who must answer}

TCR: You know, uh, my response is that I’m not familiar with all the, uh, the, uh, wargames that were going on, um, before 9/11. Uh, but this, um, the, uh, trying to think through how you deal with those things are terribly important. And I think that’s where I ended up this evening is that I think I, uh, an important role for a university like this is to get those discussions out in the open and have a convocation on what are we going to do, uh, when that sort of thing {referring to the mushroom cloud on the screen} happens. Uh, do the drills and exercises cause the problem? No, I don’t think so, uh, anymore than, you know, medicines cause the diseases. But, um, there’s a lot of, uh, subterranean games, thinking about it go on. But I think what are we going to do really needs the public ventilation that a university can bring to bear.

JRK: But you’re saying that it was a coincidence that all these games were running on 9/11 that mimed what actually happened? Are you saying that?

TCR: Um, yeah. In a short answer, yeah, I don’t think that they’re connected.

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Later, during the book signing, Mr. Reed admitted he had heard of some, but not all of the drills that had been mentioned. He again said that, because of the frequency of drills, he didn’t think that the mimetic drills were related to the 9/11 attacks. When asked whether he was familiar with the evidence for the demolitions of the WTC, Reed responded by saying “not really.” After Rothe-Kushel clued him in to and gave him information about the discovery of nanothermite and the presence of Richard Gage (AIA) and the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Reed thanked Rothe-Kushel for supplying him information.

Rothe-Kushel asked Reed what we should do as a people having found out that our fellow citizens were blown up by advanced weaponry.

“I’m not in the what-should-we-do business. I’m too old for all that. I’m a historian…I’d be interested in reading that, in reading the history, but what to do about it, that’s what we got universities and young guys like you.”

Rothe-Kushel then pointed out that the oath that Reed took never dies and that at some point is it not the case that at some point the truth becomes the way to protect and defend the Constitution.

Reed agreed, but then pointed out that at his age, one has a tendency to focus on what is for dinner that evening. Rothe-Kushel, in reference to the work and similar age of David Ray Griffin, left Reed with the thought that, “Patriotism doesn’t have any end date.”
“That’s true,” Reed affirmed.

I've never seen that either, and it is seriously important. Yet more evidence the FBI itself was being managed so it couldn't do its job.

So Reed believes all the war games exercises were just a coincidence, huh? .....and the 'terrorists' just got lucky by choosing that day.......and the Neocons just got lucky by getting their New Pearl Harbor.

Good job, WACLA- good choice of question topic, preparation and presentation, good follow-up. Good production, editing in the graphics. The gratuitous shots of cute girls didn't quite seem to fit with the serious nature of the event and Jeremy's question, but probably won't turn off many youtube viewers. Thanks for the transcript.

Thanks loose nuke, HC is quite a resource. I'm glad to see this listed-- Your work, along with Kevin Fenton and Paul Thompson, etc. is much appreciated.

"Just as the worst terrorist act was being committed on American lives and property, the chief federal agency responsible for preventing such crimes was being AWOL." (Evote.com/US politics)

"It is fair to say that the FBI rescue operations and other FBI operatives are really in chaos right now, because they can't reach their officials in NY, all of their phone lines are down." (NBC)

"A real breakdown of the FBI anti-terror coordination team, which is of course the principal team that would lead any effort." (NBC)

So the FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force was stuck in Monterey, CA due to the airspace lockdown...... Meanwhile FEMA had already arrived in Manhattan for Tripod II the night before....and poised to take action.... Both NORAD and the FBI were compromised due to the exercises....... and the NRO, whose job is to use satelites to look down on our skies, was empty from a drill of a plane crashing their headquarters!

And Rudy moves from the Emergency Operation bunker in Building 7 (which would be soon destroyed by office fires) over to the FEMA Command Center set up by Tripod......

You're gettin better at this all the time. Just presenting evidence and asking the question in a scholarly manner got a polite reception at very dignified gathering. He had to do what he had to do and it's called the weasel walk around - stay in the club two step. But that's OK. The seed has been planted.

You got these guys to pay attention to what you were saying, and kept your head together. Great amount of info readily available, and the way you treated him with respect was a big plus. Thanks for representing us out there!!

Is that you have people like Thomas Reed talking about the imminent possibility of a nuclear "terrorist" attack.
So what exactly do we need to do to prevent this? Well if you believe the official 911 story then perhaps one could argue that expansion of the wars is required. Is that where he was going with this presentation? Or do we need to stop our unjust wars, torture and rendition to stop growing these seeds from our destruction behavior ? Is this presentation a public awareness campaign which could become perhaps even indirectly a pretext for the unthinkable? Let's pray not. Good job JRK , nice demeanor, good preparation and I think you had him thinking at the end. I think he may review the information and you left him with a plug for patriotism! Excellent psychology, Nice-Op!

Great question - He answers it for us - Play this or use this evidence in a university or other highly regarded academic institution and open up the topics for debate and problem solving analysis. 9-11 brought us to each other to find the truth, and it might be sitting right there - We're gonna get nuked. That's a tough one to swallow. Bring it up in the context of who he is and why he is relevant and we are definitely going to get some resistance going in places that matter

Ditto to all of the kudos here about your performance. WACLA rocks! If we had teams as good as you guys in just a handful of major cities, this would be over by now. Keep it up.

This may or may not be relevant, and because it's in hind sight it's certainly not mentioned as a criticism, but you might have asked Reed if he knew Bob Bowman. Given that both were involved in advanced weaponry at about the same time, they may have at least known of each other.

You folks get better and better with each encounter. This was pointed and substantive. Sooner or later you will get an explosive answer from a high ranking official. I look forward to it and the ensuing investigation.

1. I was amazed that no one on the stage ever jumped in and cut you off.

2. It may have been video color distortion but while you were setting up your question to the panel, Mr Reed's nose appeared to morph into a" blushing" shade of red not apparent at the later book-signing.

"To blush is to display redness in one's face; the term is usually used when the redness is a result of an emotional response, which could reflect EMBARRASSMENT, SHAME, or modesty. "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blushing [my emphasis]

3. For an audience like that, where the "question" is meant to be heard by the audience, as much as or more than actually being answered, I hope there were WACLA folks somewhere in or out of the building handing out DVD's and other 911Turth materials. If so, that gives the audience something to "go home with," especially if their interest was piqued and they're new to the whole thing.

If not, I think, catching people during a "teaching moment" would be very valuable in the future.